Kandinsky Trio Season Opener Announced

SALEM, Va. —The Kandinsky Trio will open its 2006-2007 season at Roanoke College on Saturday, September 23, at 8 p.m. in the Olin Theater. Tickets are $20 for the general public and $12 for senior citizens and can be purchased by calling the Olin Box Office, Monday through Friday, 1 – 4 p.m. at (540) 375-2333 or online at www.roanoke.edu/tickets. Also available is a four-event Kandinsky Trio season ticket (including December 2, January 20, and April 21 concerts) for $65.

The program will begin with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Trio in G Major, Op. 1 No. 2. A vivacious work, it is one of three piano trios which Beethoven chose to publish as his Op. 1. This somewhat elusive early Trio has one foot in the eighteenth century and the other in the nineteenth.

Olivier Messiaen’s terrifyingly beautiful “Quartet for the End of Time” is one of the most important compositions of the 20th century. While an inmate in a German prisoner-of-war camp from 1940 to 1942, Messiaen began to compose to survive the horrors of the camp. The music he created focused on “marvelous visions of peace”, not the brutality that surrounded him. The Kandinsky Trio and guest artist Daniel McKelway, clarinet, will perform against the backdrop of the apocalyptical art of renowned artist William Rutherfoord, with readings by actor Ernie Zulia.

The Kandinskys are delighted to welcome back McKelway, one of the most sought-after soloists of his generation. He has been a prizewinner at the Young Concert Artists, Naumberg and Affiliate Artists competitions, as well as having received a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. He has appeared at the Blossom, Edinburgh, Marlboro, Prussia Cove, Taipei and Tanglewood festivals. This will be his third appearance in Salem with the Kandinsky Trio.

William Rutherfoord’s work will be featured and has been published in Art Papers, The Oxford American Review, and Noticias de Art. His work is in numerous private collections throughout the country, as well as the Art Museum of Western Virginia, Roanoke.

Now in its 19th season, the Kandinsky Trio (Benedict Goodfriend, violin; Alan Weinstein, cello; and Elizabeth Bachelder, piano) has performed world-wide in more than 175 cities nationally and internationally. The Kandinsky Trio has also been heard in such venues as the Interlochen Festival, the Concert Society at Maryland, the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville, Cincinnati’s Aronoff Center and the Center for the Arts at Penn State. Its recordings are aired regularly on Boston’s WGBH, Chicago’s WFMT and the Maine, Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin and Minnesota Public Radio Networks. Live performances have been broadcast on the “MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour,” numerous times on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today” and WNYC’s “Around New York.”

Roanoke College, the country’s second oldest Lutheran-related college, is an independent, co-educational, four-year liberal arts college. Roanoke is one of just 270 colleges nationwide with a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honor society. The Princeton Review names Roanoke as one of the “best in the Southeast.” Roanoke’s 1,900 students represent 40 states across the U.S. and 26 foreign countries.

For additional information, call the Roanoke College Public Relations Office at (540) 375-2282.